Do BYU-Idaho Students Interact with Church Social Media?

Transcription

1 Do BYU-Idaho Students Interact with Church Social Media? Nikki Siegel Whitney Claflin Carissa Simons Jessica Blain Morgan Harper

2 ABSTRACT Background: Research has shown social media is becoming more prominent in today s society, and religion can be influenced by use of social media. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been using more social media to convey its messages, but it is unknown how BYU-Idaho students interact with the Church s social media. Methods: To research how BYU-I students interact with Church social media, a survey was sent to 300 BYU-I students, out of which, 66 responded to the survey. Thirteen questions were asked to determine the interaction between the students and the Church-related social media. Findings: The majority of BYU-I students follow Church-related groups on social media, and the majority say that they do not hesitate to share Church-related messages on social media. Out of the number that say they do not hesitate to share the messages, it was found that females are less likely to hesitate in sharing than male students. However, only 29 percent of students actually do share Church-related messages on social media. Facebook is the most-used social media platform when it comes to interacting with Church-related material, while Twitter was the least-used. BYU-I students share official and unofficial messages equally on social media. Conclusion: Most BYU-I students do interact with Church-related social media, mostly through following church-related groups, but also somewhat through sharing the messages. The interaction primarily occurs on Facebook. 1

3 LITERARY ANALYSIS Social Media is the future of communication in the 21 st century (1). There is great power in social media because of the growing number of social media users. Specifically in the United States, social media use is growing at a very quick pace. Social media platforms account for 25 percent of online screen-time for Americans (2). The amount of social media use, primarily from adults, in the United States has grown immensely in just the last few years. From 2005 to 2012, adult internet users went from 8 percent up to 67 percent, an increase of over 700 percent (2). Many companies and social groups have realized and felt the impact of social media use in this new technology and media heavy environment. The movement of present generation towards the digital technology can demand a change in political and social systems, according to a study completed by Youth Studies Australia (3). Organizations are finding that they need to learn how to communicate through social media use, because it is the future of communication (3). One subject that is being constantly communicated throughout the world is religion. Religion is very prevalent among people today. In fact, religion is more important in today s society than it has been for some time (10). 2

4 According to USA Today research, when asked why religion is important, Americans said it is important for worship, for a change to experience community and for service, but its greatest contribution is that religion makes people want to live (5). If religion is important to people and people are becoming more likely to use social media to communicate, then religion is more than likely going to be talked about via social media. Because of how prominent social media is becoming in our society, studies have been done on how and if individuals react with social media involving their religion in some way. A group of college students were tested in a study by the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning on how they interact with social media, using Twitter, in relation to school work. The purpose of the study was to see if students would use Twitter to engage in school pursuits and to see if this engagement would cause grades to rise (7). They began this study by administering a survey to 132 students in their first semester of pre-health majors. Based on this survey they were able to narrow the group down to 115 students who said they have and use Twitter. They then split this group into two (7). The experimental group consisted of 77 students, and the controlled group consisted of 55 students. Throughout the semester, the experimental 3

5 group would engage in assignments that dealt directly with Twitter. The control group would remain the same to help compare the results (7). thinking of one if he or she had the opportunity to engage in religious matters on social media? Would it lead to more faith conversions? At the end of the semester, through another series of surveys and analysis of the Tweets done by the experimental group, researcher came to the conclusion that students were more engaged in their school work through Twitter. There was a considerable difference between the two groups as the experimental group s engagement in school work and grades did rise (7). Because it shows the power of social media on the current generation, this conclusion leads to other questions such as: How would it influence the The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion did a study on individuals self-disclosing their religion online using one of the first social media platforms: MySpace. The study showed many people who found religion to be a private matter did not self-disclose their religion on Myspace, and there were not very many people who did disclose their religion (6). Only one in three Myspace users said something about religion, and it was usually through the religion affiliation option status on their profile. Also, individuals that had 4

6 many religious friends on Myspace were more likely to self-disclose their religion than others (6). This study shows that although it is rare for individuals to openly disclose their religion through Myspace, the most common religion that did disclose was Christianother (6). This is interesting, because it brings up questions like: Is Christianity spreading on social media more than any other religion? And if so, why? Because of this great push towards the use of social media in this generation, one Christian group, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormons, has moved forward in presenting the Church s doctrine in the online world (8). The Church markets their beliefs through many means, and the Church has been able to use online tools like search engine optimization and social media platforms to positively influence the public and share the true aspects of the Church s beliefs. This helps with clarifying and changing negative rumors that have been incorrectly shared as facts around the world (8). A study done by the University of Pennsylvania on the Church covered how conversion and deconversation can take place both on and offline. The research was done by in-depth interviews of both current and former members of the Church. From the experiences of the 5

7 individuals being surveyed, the results show people feel more comfortable and confident in sharing their opinions online when finding others who feel the same way so they can receive positive reinforcement of their beliefs (4). This study describes how the Internet has been a place for individuals to freely express themselves and their beliefs. The result found in this research is that individuals will go to the Internet to find others who share their views on a belief (4). Individuals are more likely to express themselves openly and frequently when they are in an online environment rather than in person with a group. The authors of this study propose that material studied online can lead to either conversion or reconversion to a faith or religion (4). Other findings show that the Church is getting involved but may not be getting the fruits of their efforts. The Church is using social media, through the news as well, to reach its primarily Mormon audience. A study completed by the Journal of Media and Religion shows that the Church is using social media to promote its messages (the Mormon Times is tweeting about 2.25 times a day), but it may not be interacting much with its audience (9). In recent years, the Church has made considerable efforts to improve their outreach online. Much of that has taken place on different social media 6

8 platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. The target audiences of this social media promotion are mostly teenagers and young adults. Is it effective? Do BYU-Idaho college students interact with what the Church places on social media? This question needs to be researched to better understand how far BYU-I students go to share their beliefs online or if they do share their beliefs online at all. Also, it would be interesting to know how effective the Church is in convincing college-age students to share their beliefs based on the content placed on the different social media platforms. 7

9 METHODS Methodology For this study, data was gathered through the use of a survey. An electronic survey, created in Qualtrics, sent out to 300 randomly selected BYU-Idaho student s to collect the data. s were obtained through Institutional Director Scott Bergstrom after receiving university permission to conduct the survey. Response Rates During the two and a half week period the survey was available for, the survey was sent out to students three times. Out of the 300 students invited to take the survey, 66 students responded. This calculates to a 22 percent response rate. Unless otherwise stated, the information gathered from this survey comes from the direct responses of those BYU-I students who completed the survey. Survey The survey asked BYU-I students 13 questions regarding their interaction with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through social media. The first four questions in the survey addressed their demographic information. The remaining nine questions addressed their personal interaction with Church social media. The survey consisted of yes or no questions, likert scale questions and multiplechoice questions. Questions The following demographic questions were asked in the survey to help better categorize the audience: 8

10 What is your gender? What is your relationship status? Have you served a mission? At what age were you baptized? The following questions addressing student interaction with Church social media were asked in the survey: How many hours a day do you spend on social media? Did you participate in the #BecauseofHim campaign? Do you share Mormon Messages? Do you share General Conference talks or quotes? How often do you share official Church messages? How often do you share unofficial Church messages? Do you follow any Churchrelated groups? Do you hesitate to share Church-related material on social media? Definitions of terms used in the survey questions: #BecauseofHim was a campaign used during the Easter season by the Church to help promote remembrance of the life of Jesus Christ. Official Church messages are messages the Church publishes themselves on their social media platforms. The people who follow them can share or post these same messages on their personal social media pages. 9

11 Unofficial Church messages are messages that the social media user creates related to the Church. The Church did not sponsor these messages or originally create them. These messages are mostly testimonies about the Church or other personal, gospelrelated insights. (See Appendix for detailed survey questions.) 10

12 FINDINGS Finding one: The majority of BYU-I students follow Church-related groups on social media. One question asked on the survey addressed whether or not BYU-I students follow Church-related groups on social media. Out of the 66 responses to this survey question, 53 students said yes, and 13 students said no. This means 80 percent of the surveyed students follow Church-related groups, while 20 percent do not. To follow on the different social media platforms means to deliberately receive updates and information posted by an individual or group. For this particular study, the question in the survey asks students if they follow or have chosen to receive updates through social media by the Church. The graph for this finding shows 10 figures that are a social media icon representing to follow. Eight of the figures are blue which represent that 80 percent of the students follow Church-related content on the social media platforms. Two of the figures were in red to represent the 20 percent that don t. The percentage of students that follow Church-related groups compared to those that don t. 80% Follow 20% Don t 11

13 Finding two: The majority of BYU-I students say they do not hesitate to share Church messages on social media. Another question the survey asked students was whether or not they hesitate to share Church messages on social media. Out of the 66 responses, 46 students said they do not hesitate, and 20 said they do. This means 70 percent of surveyed students self-reported that they do not hesitate to share and 30 percent self-reported they do hesitate. This is clearly stated in the graph. The dark blue bar in the attached graph represents the 70 percent of the students that do not hesitate in sharing social media. The light blue bar represents the 30 percent of the students that do hesitate. Corollary finding 2-A: Female students are less likely to hesitate sharing Church- related material on social media than male students. As shown by the data from this survey question and further calculation, although the majority of surveyed students do not hesitate to share church messages on social media, men are more likely to hesitate in sharing the Church social media than women. Out of the 44 female students who responded to the survey question, 33 said they do not hesitate and 11 said they do. Out of the 22 males that responded, 13 said they do not hesitate and 9 said that they do. To find the percentage of students that do and do not hesitate, a series of ratio calculations were done. These calculations show 41 percent of the surveyed males do hesitate to share Church-related messages on social media compared to the 26 percent of females that hesitate. 12

14 The portion of the graph that represents this sub-finding is the male and female figures. The female figure represents the percentage of females that hesitate to share, which is 26 percent. The male figure represents the percentage of males that hesitate to share, which is 41 percent. Students who say they don t hesitate to share Church-related material versus those who do. 70% Don t Hesitate 30% Do 26% 41% 13

15 Finding Three: Facebook is the most-used social media platform used to share Church-related messages. A cross tabulation was done using data from two questions on the survey to show which platform of social media was used most often to share Church-related material. One of the questions used addressed how often students share official Church messages, and the other question asked how often students share unofficial Church-related messages. For this study, official refers to material published by the Church, and unofficial means personally created religious content. A series of calculations were done to show that 52 out of the 66 surveyed students said that they do share Church-related material on Facebook while only 14 students said they do not. This calculates to 79 percent of the surveyed students do share on Facebook and only 21 percent of students do not. The Facebook portion of the graph is represented by the Facebook symbol. The Symbol is filled to the percent of students who use Facebook to share Church social media which is 79 percent. Corollary Finding 3-A: Twitter is the least-used social media platform for sharing Churchrelated messages. Based off the same survey questions from finding three, the social media platform, Twitter, was the least-used platform. Only two students out of the 66 who responded to the survey share Churchrelated messages on Twitter, which calculates to 3 percent of the surveyed students. The data also showed that 56 students said they never share Church-related material on Twitter, which calculates 14

16 to 85 percent of the surveyed students. This could correlate with another question from the survey which asked what social media platform students use more. According to the responses to this question, Twitter was the least-used platform overall by the surveyed students. In the graph, the Twitter logo represents student use of Twitter to share Church social media. Three percent of the logo is shaded; this represents that only 3 percent of students use Twitter to share Church social media. 79% vs. 3% 15

17 Finding Four: The majority of BYU-I students do not share Church-related material on social media. Using the same two questions from the survey as in finding three, calculations were done to show that out of the 66 surveyed students, eight students chose not to respond. Forty-one students who answered said they do not share Church-related material on social media, while 17 of the surveyed students who answered said they do share. This calculates to 62 percent of the students who answered the survey do not share Church-related material and only 29 percent do share. The graph for this finding is shown by using a social media icon that represents people sharing. The big light blue icon represents the students who do not share, which is 62 percent. The little dark blue icon shows the small percentage of students who do share, which is 29 percent. The percentage of students that share compared to those that don t. 62% Don t 29% Do 16

18 Finding Five: BYU-I students share official and unofficial Church material equally on social media platforms. Official church messages are messages the Church publishes themselves on their social media platforms. Unofficial church messages are messages that the social media users create themselves relating to the Church. The Church did not sponsor the material, or they did not create it. For example: testimonies, or personal religious experiences. Using the same questions used in findings previous to this one, calculations were done to show that out of 66 surveyed students, 19 answered that they share official Church messages, which means 29 percent of the students surveyed share official content. It was also found that 18 out of the 66 surveyed students share unofficial Church messages, which means 27 percent of the surveyed students share unofficial content. When a comparison is made, they are almost equal. The graph that represents this finding is a basic bar graph. The bar that is dark blue represents the students who share unofficial Church social media, which is 27 percent. The bar that is red represents the students who share official Church social media, which is 29 percent. The bar graph helps show that the two percentages are about equal. 27.2% 28.8% Unofficial Official 17

19 CONCLUSION Overall, it was found that the majority of BYU-I students do interact with Church social media, mostly through following Church-related groups but somewhat through sharing Church-related messages. Eighty percent of students are following Church social media, whereas only 29 percent of students are actually sharing that Church-related content with family members and friends through social media. This shows that while students may follow Churchrelated groups, they are not as interested in sharing what they follow. Having people share content is more important to the growth of the message in today s social media market than having people follow the content (11). With significantly more BYU-I students following than sharing Church social media, one can conclude that the Church messages are not reaching nearly as many people as they could if more students were proactive in sharing the messages instead of being passive followers. An article in the Deseret News gave one example of one woman whose religion believed in an angry God, but she converted to a much gentler religion after listening to a podcast shared via social media (12). This shows that the sharing of religious views can impact change in people. Interestingly, although only 29 percent of students said they share Church-related content, 18

20 70 percent of the surveyed students reported that they do not hesitate to share Churchrelated messages on social media. What is causing that gap between being mentally prepared to share and actually sharing? What changes would happen if those who said they do not hesitate to share Church messages but do not actually share started sharing? Female BYU-I students are less likely to hesitate in sharing Church-related messages than male students. This is shown by only 26 percent of female students saying they hesitate to share Church messages on social media, while 41 of male students say they hesitate. This suggests that female BYU-I students are potentially less shy in publicly sharing their beliefs than male students. It would be interesting to further study the relationship being a returned missionary has to sharing the gospel through social media, because many of the male students were returned missionaries, but those men who had served missionaries seemed to hesitate more than the women who had not served missions. As for which social medium is used most often, 79 percent of students prefer using Facebook to share Churchrelated messages. Conversely, only 3 percent of students use Twitter to share Churchrelated messages. According to a study done by ebiz, Facebook is the No. 1 most popular social networking site with nearly three times more unique visitors monthly than Twitter, the No. 2 most popular 19

21 site (13). Out of the four social media sites Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram compared in the survey, not only is Twitter the least used in terms of sharing Church messages, it is used less as a social media platform overall. There is not a strong interaction between BYU-I students and Church-related social media on Twitter. Because of this, Twitter may not be the best way for the Church to reach its BYU-I student audience. In contrast, Facebook is by far the most-used social networking site for BYU-I students. Since Facebook is the primary social media platform used by BYU-I students, it makes sense that the most Church-related messages, whether officially published by the Church or otherwise, would be shared through Facebook. Official and unofficial Church messages were shared about equally when it came to students sharing the gospel on social media. This could be taken to mean that students are willing to share the gospel through social media This also means that students are just as comfortable sharing what they believe about the gospel as what is officially Church doctrine. Students are not afraid of creating their own content, which would suggest an overall level of comfort in their knowledge of the Church doctrine and messages. 20

22 FOOTNOTES 1. Social Media Guidance for University of Manchester Staff. The University of Manchester, 2013, 4: Viswanath, K. Social media use by community-based organizations conducting health promotion: a content analysis. BMC Public Health 13: Sheila, A. Youth and the (potential) power of social media. Youth Studies Australia, 2011, 32: Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. 4. Avance, R. Seeing the Light: Mormon Conversion and Deconversion Narratives in Off- and Online Worlds. The University of Pennsylvania, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. 5. Thomas, O. Why do we need religion? USA TODAY, August 8, forum/ column09_st_n.htm. 6. Pearce, L. D., and P. S. Bobkowski. Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self-Disclosure in Social Media. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2011, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. 7. Junco, R., G. Heiberger, and E. Loken. The Effect of Twitter on College Engagement and Grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 2011, 27: Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. 8. Chen, C. H. Marketing Religion Online: The LDS Church s SEO Efforts. Brigham Young University Hawaii, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. 21

23 9. Boyle, K. Latter-Day Tweets: The Mormon Times s Use of Twitter as a Reporting Tool. Journal of Media & Religion, October, 2012, 11. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. 10. Pirner, M. L. Religious Socialization by the Media? An Empirical Study and Conclusions for Practical Theology. (German). International Journal of Practical Theology, 2009, 13, no. 2: Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. 11. Mozak, Jocelyn. Understanding Social Media Sharing vsfollowing. Portland Website Designer. August 13, Scribner, Herb. How social and digital media are changing#religion. Deseret News National. October 14, Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites July ebiz. July,

24 APPENDIX The Survey: 23

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26 Results: 25

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